It was a competition where the member organisations of BirdLife International
competed to choose the best European bird song of the year 2002. As the
competition was held on the Internet, birds did not had to fly here and
you could meet them only on these pages illustrated by photos, descriptions
and songs.

PRESS RELEASE

Today, 24 May, the month-long internet-based Birdeurovision voting
for the sweetest bird song of Europe ended. The public vote favoured
the non-song birdcall of the Golden Plover. But through the attention
to birds that the competition has brought, friends of nature all
over the world were the winners.

After the Golden Plover Europeans rated highly the beautiful songs
of Bluethroat (Belgium) and European Oystercatcher (Faroe Islands).

Simultaneous with the public voting via the Internet, a jury of
European ornithologists voted for their favourite, giving points
to the candidates based on the same system as is used in the peoples
Eurovision song contest.

The chart of the European ornithologists has the Thrush Nightingale,
the bird selected by internet vote to represent Estonia, at the
top.

During the one-month voting period nearly 400,000 hits were made
on the contests internet site. On the homepage www.birdeurovision.org
one could listen to the songs of the feathered artists from 21 European
countries. The artists were judged based on a 30-second bird song
or call recording submitted by each countrys bird societies.

Public voting results (top 5):

1.
Golden Plover

Iceland

2.
Bluethroat

Belgium

3.
European Oystercatcher

Faroe
Islands

4.
Blackbird

Finland

5.
Thrush Nightingale

Estonia

Professional voting results (top 5):

1.
Thrush Nightingale

Estonia

2.
Blackcap

Cypros

3.
Skylark

Denmark

4.
Marsh Warbler

Bulgaria

5.
Wren

Germany

Robert Oetjen, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Estonian
Fund for Nature said, important is that tens of thousands
of Europeans discovered, in the background of a pop music event,
their small, but musically very talented bird neighbors. Its
possible that a large number of visitors of the internet site www.birdeurovision.org
learned for the first time to distinguish the songs of the Blackbird
from the Thrush Nightingale and heard the calls of the Golden Plover
for the fist time.

The purpose for organising the Birdeurovision song contest has
been to draw attention of the Estonian and European public to the
diversity of birds that are living beside us and to the need for
their protection.

Estonia is very important site in Europe for migrating birds. Every
spring and autumn about 10 million migratory birds stop in Estonia,
which is many times more than the number of tourists visiting Estonia.

Estonian Post released a special post card, which portrays all
21 birds participating in the birdeurovision contest and for which
the postage cost for sending to any country in the world is included
in the price.

The organising of Birdeurovision cost approximately 12,500 EUR.
The internet homepage www.birdeurovision.org was visited 400,000
times, and votes were registered 30,000 times.

Organisers of the event thank Estonian Television, Estonian Post,
Tallinn Zoo and all of the participating ornithological societies
from 20 European countries for supporting the event.

Birdeurovision was organised by the Estonian Fund for Nature, the
Estonian Ornithological Society, and the telecommunications company
TELE2.

The Estonian Fund for Nature (ELF) is an non-profit independent
environmental organisation working in nature conservation, nature
education and sustainable development projects. ELF is the partner
organisation of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Estonia.
Info: www.elfond.ee, elf@elfond.ee

The Estonian Ornithological Society is a non-profit Estonian
bird protection organisation and the Estonian partner of the international
bird protection network Birdlife International. Info: www.eoy.ee

Tele2 is the leading alternative pan-European telecommunications
company offering fixed and mobile telephony, data network and
Internet services to 15.8 million people in 21 countries. Info:
www.tele2.ee